Rosalyn Sussman Yalow

Yalow, Rosalyn Sussman, 1921–2011, American medical physicist, b. New York City, Ph.D. Univ. of Illinois, 1945. As a researcher at the Bronx Veterans Administration Hospital (from 1947), Yalow and colleague Solomon A. Berson developed a process, called radioimmunoassay, that made it possible to detect mere traces of biological substances in blood and other fluids. Their laboratory used the technique to make a number of discoveries concerning diabetes and insulin as well as other findings. For her work, Yalow was awarded the 1977 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine along with Andrew V. Schally and Roger Guillemin. Yalow also was a professor at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, New York City, from 1968 until her death.